Death, taxes and Minecraft Earth launch countries – that’s what it feels like lately, with new launch countries for the mobile AR game popping up every few days. This time, it’s the United Kingdom’s turn to get building.
Tea, crumpets – and now also Minecraft Earth! Early access has arrived in the United Kingdom. Jolly good!
People living in the UK can now download the game, which is in early access and launching gradually worldwide, a few countries at a time. The United Kingdom joins New Zealand, Iceland, Australia, Mexico, Sweden, Canada, South Korea and the Philippines as launch countries. There is still no word on a United States launch, but given that the UK is one of the bigger markets that the game has launched in, a US launch might be coming soon.
The mobile AR game is Minecraft’s response to Pokemon Go and other map-based mobile games that get you out of the house and exploring the real world, intertwined with AR elements. You can build structures, craft weapons, collect materials by exploring your real-world neighborhood and fight monsters in AR during the “adventure” events scattered across the map.
While the game does share similarities to other map-based AR games, it also has its own nice Minecraft-spin to it that offers some nice points of difference. I’ve been able to try the game out here in Australia already, so you can expect a first impressions piece on the game soon.
What are your thoughts on Minecraft Earth? Have you tried the game out, and are you still waiting for it to launch in your country? Let us know in the comments below.
The Minecraft Earth release schedule seems to be speeding up a bit – just a few days after the last batch of countries, the new AR mobile game is now available in Canada, South Korea and the Philippines.
Queued up and ready to go! Today, three additional countries join the Minecraft Earth early access. Say hi to:
The game, while still in early access, is now available publicly to anyone in Australia, Mexico, Sweden, New Zealand, Canada, South Korea, the Philippines and Iceland. The release schedule is gradual, rolling out a few countries at a time. With Canada, Australia and South Korea now on the map, it looks like we’re getting closer to a release in some of the bigger markets like the US and the UK.
Minecraft Earth is Microsoft’s response to the mobile AR craze that started with Pokemon Go. You’ll have to get out of the house and explore the real world and use AR to build structures and complete “adventure” events set in the Minecraft universe. You can also collect materials, craft items and smelt resources just like you can in the original version of Minecraft, but not without a few changes to adapt it to the AR-based mobile platform.
I’ve been jumping into Minecraft Earth here and there since the Australian release last week, and it’s definitely an interesting spin on existing AR-based mobile games like PoGo or Wizards Unite. You can expect a first impressions piece, and other Minecraft Earth content, coming soon.
Have you been able to dive into Minecraft Earth already, or are you still waiting for the game to release in your country? Let us know in the comments below.
After an initial launch in New Zealand and Iceland, Minecraft Earth early access is now available in Australia, Mexico and Sweden. The game is gradually rolling out across a few countries at a time, seemingly in smaller markets first.
Early access is in full swing and rolling out around the world! We’re working around the block to bring everyone into Minecraft Earth. Here are today’s countries: Australia Mexico Sweden More info on our early access plans
While it’s still launching in early access, this gradual launch is not restricted and is available to anyone, provided you’re in one of the supported launch countries. Minecraft Earth previously launched a closed beta for select players only, and early access marks the first time the game is available publicly.
This is Minecraft’s response to Pokemon Go and other map-based mobile games that get you out of the house and exploring the real world, intertwined with AR elements. You can build structures, craft weapons, collect materials by exploring your real-world neighborhood and fight monsters in AR during the “adventure” events scattered across the map.
I downloaded the app today and gave it a try. While it’s still early obviously, there are some really fun elements that hark back to 2011 and give me major Minecraft nostalgia. The game still has a lot to offer that I haven’t checked out yet, but it does also feel somewhat distinguished from other similar AR games like Pokemon Go and Harry Potter: Wizards Unite.
There’s still no concrete word on when the game will launch in some of the larger markets like the US or the UK. The best indicator we have is on the Minecraft Earth site, which just indicates it will launch in more countries “in the coming weeks.”
Be sure to keep an eye out for more Minecraft Earth coverage from us in the next few weeks. If you’re in one of the supported early access countries and you’ve tried the game out, let us know in the comments below.
Novelis recently engaged Zugara to develop an Augmented Reality mobile app that could help act as an interactive sales tool for Novelis’ product team. The AR experience needed to help communicate the product features and attributes for Novelis’ new aluminum battery enclosure for electric vehicles. AR was utilized within the mobile app to enhance product demonstrations on multiple fronts:
An augmented reality product demonstration showed the battery enclosure in both an enclosed and expanded view. Different sub part features could be selected and viewed in a real world environment (pictured above).
The AR presentation of the product could be scaled for a full-size product demonstration in a factory or reduced for display on a conference room table during a board room presentation.
Different product features (including chemical compositions) were selectable and viewable in AR mode. In addition, we developed 3D viewable data that could assist engineers with viewing data in AR while also viewing specific product sub part information.
A product assembly presentation was also developed in Augmented Reality view to show how the battery enclosure was assembled in a step by step process.
“Novelis consistently seeks new, innovative ways to engage with our customers when it comes to marketing our products,” said Nick Dzierzak, Electric Vehicle Business Development Manager, Novelis Global Automotive Team. “Augmented Reality helps improve the interaction and engagement with our customers by offering our sales & technical teams a new way to present our products and material data and can be used anywhere and anytime in true to life detail and form. The Zugara Team was great to work with and helped explain how both Augmented Reality and Mixed Reality could be utilized both with our mobile application and within our organization.”
You can view a demonstration of the Novelis Augmented Reality Sales Tool in the embedded video below or on YouTube here. You can also view an Image Gallery at the end of this blog post.
The mobile AR experience was developed for smartphone and tablet devices with corresponding ARKit (Apple) and ARCore (Android) functionality.
You can view other AR apps Zugara has developed for our clients in our Augmented Reality Projects section. We’re also happy to help you build you next Augmented Reality experience so please feel free to Contact Us if you have any questions on Augmented Reality, Mixed Reality or Zugara.
Ever since the release of the ARCore platform by Google, there have been some amazing ARCore apps by ARCore developers. Similar to how we outlined the top ARKit apps and developers in a separate blog post, in this post, we wanted to highlight some of the top ARCore apps and demos we have seen to date. Unfortunately, since ARCore has limited availability on the Google Pixel and Samsung 8+ mobile devices, there aren’t as many ARCore developers yet in comparison to ARKit developers. However, there are still some amazing ARCore use cases that have become public. A few of those top ARCore apps and use cases can be found below.
ARCore Introduction
Similar to ARKit, ARCore is a SLAM-based technology. We went over some SLAM and Augmented Reality technology basics in our Top ARKits and ARKit Developers blog post that you can read here. If you want to get a more in-depth and technical review of both ARKit and ARCore, Matt Miesnieks from Super Ventures has some great technical reviews on both ARCore and ARKit.
For a more visual introduction to ARCore, we’ve embedded Google’s ARCore Introduction video below which we think does a great job of showing how ARCore technology will apply to a variety of Augmented Reality Use Cases.
In addition to the ARCore introduction video, Google also has a site called ARCore Experiments with some basic yet cool examples of ARCore technology. We’ve embedded an intro video for ARCore Experiments below along with two ARCore experiments we thought were great representations of what ARCore technology will do for Augmented Reality.
ARCore Developers
As mentioned previously, because ARCore has a limited number of mobile devices it is available for and that it was released after ARKit, there aren’t as many ARCore developer videos out there yet. However, we have included two of the most impressive ARCore videos we have seen so far.
As we come across more ARCore apps by ARCore developers, we’ll update this blog post. This is similar to how we’ve been updated the Top ARKit Apps and ARKit Developers blog post with the best ARKit examples we come across. You can also view the Facebook Augmented Reality page for all the latest ARKit and ARCore news and videos. And finally, we’ll be posting any latest ARKit apps and ARCore apps on our Zugara developer page here.
In the interim, you can check out a few links below to get more information on both ARKit and ARCore:
Ever since the release of Apple’s ARKit platform, ARKit developers have been creating some amazing ARKit apps. Just in the last month we have seen everything from a variety of ARKit inter-dimensional portals, to ARKit measuring tools and an ARKit Pac-man recreation. With ARKit as part of iOS 11 and projected to be released with the iPhone 8, we’ll likely see even more creative demos over the coming months. The iOS ecosystem is ripe for ARKit disruption as ARKit developers will be looking at a projected 505 Million ARKit supported devices by the end of 2017.
With the explosion on ARKit apps, we wanted to highlight a few of the better examples of ARKit being deployed by ARKit developers. You can find most of these ARKit examples on YouTube or on the Facebook Augmented Reality community. At Zugara, we have also been experimenting with ARKit and will be releasing some demos publicly soon.
Listed below, in no specific order, are some of the better ARKit apps we’ve seen created by ARKit developers over the last month. Think of this as a living list of ARKit apps as we’ll continue to add any new and exciting ARKit examples as we see them.
ARKit Portals
There have been a variety of different ARKit “Portals” released by ARKit developers but the 3 best we’ve seen to date are the original ARKit inter-dimensional portal by @Nedd, ARKit A-Ha Music video and ARKit portal on the floor. ARKit inter-dimensional portal and ARKit A-Ha Music Video are embedded below and you can find the ARKit portal on the floor video here.
ARKit Games
2 of the more impressive examples of using ARKit for games utilize different methods. The first is the ARKit game by Alpha.io which utilizes the iPhone’s accelerometer and gyroscope for interaction with Augmented Reality objects positioned with ARKit. The second method is more location-based where your environment turns into an interactive game with this ARKit Pac-man recreation.
ARKit 3D Object Placement & Interaction
ARKit has also been used in more straightforward ways (similar to SLAM) where 3D Augmented Reality objects are positioned and stabilized in the real-world environment. This method is similar to what was typically used with markers and image recognition to place and view Augmented Reality info. A few of the better examples of using SLAM-like functionality with ARKit include iPhone object product placement, an ARKit virtual tour of Van Gogh’s bedroom, and ARKit used to place and view a dancing robot.
As we mentioned earlier, a new ARKit app is released by an ARKit developer almost every day. We’ll continue to update this post with latest ARKit examples and you can also view latest ARKit news and apps at the Facebook Augmented Reality page.
IDC recently updated their Worldwide Semiannual Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality Spending Guide to show an increase in forecast revenues of $13.9 Billion in 2017. AR and VR spending is also expected to accelerate over the next few years to a projected $143.3 Billion market by 2020. Wow…
In regards to specific industries that will drive this Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality spending, IDC’s report lists retail as a primary driver:
“Discrete manufacturing and retail are expected to be the only two industries spending more than $1.0 billion on AR/VR solutions this year. Driven by a five-year CAGR of 238.7%, retail will move ahead of discrete manufacturing to become the top industry for AR/VR spending in 2020.”
In addition, the report also lists the specific retail use cases that will drive this retail AR & VR spending:
“The industry use cases that will attract the largest investments in 2017 are retail showcasing ($461 million), product development ($267 million), and industrial maintenance ($249 million). By 2020, online retail showcasing will join retail showcasing and produce development as one of the largest use cases with a five-year CAGR of 403%.”
As we’ve stated on our site in the past, Augmented Reality will be one of the largest (if not the largest) segments for retail in the future. Virtual Dressing Room technologyuse cases continue to show different engagement and conversion tactics, mobile Augmented Reality with geolocation will help drive consumers to retail and so on.
ResolutionTube, ein Mobile Augmented Reality Start-up aus Seattle, hat 1,5 Mio. US-$ an Seed Funding bekannt gegeben. Das Unternehmen möchte die ubiquitäre Verbreitung von Smartphones dazu nutzen, Außendienst-Mitarbeitern die Arbeit durch eine Video Augmented Reality Plattform zu vereinfachen. Außendienst-Techniker können über eine App andere Kollegen und Experten konsultierten. Die Befragten können über die App sehen, […]
Augmented World Expo 2013 was really an amazing experience. I’m co-founder and co-organizer of the conference, along with Ori Inbar, so it has meant a lot to me to see our event grow over the last four years, and thrilling to make such a big splash this year. There were 1,163 attendees, and the expo show cased an ecosystem of emerging technologies – augmented reality, gesture interaction, eyewear, wearables, and connected hardware of many stripes, that mark the beginning of natural computing entering the mainstream. It was a unique opportunity to get up close and personal with what it feels like to be an augmented human in an augmented world!
Videos of AWE 2013′s 35 hours of educational sessions and inspirational keynotes are now available on our YouTube channel. I am sharing my own talk (my slides are also up on slideshare here), and a few of my favorites in this post, but there are far to many to post here, so please browse further on the Augmented World Expo youtube channel.
One notable high point of AWE2013, for me, was the showcase sponsored by Meta, a startup developing the first device allowing visualization and interaction with 3D virtual objects in the real world using your hands. It was made possible by the generous contribution from the private collections of Paul Travers, Dan Cui, Steven Feiner, Steve Mann, and Chris Grayson, and passionate volunteers who are helping advance the industry. Sean Hollister of The Verge did this excellent report on the eyewear showcase 35 years of wearable computing history at Augmented World Expo 2013 Also for more on Meta see this article by Dan Farber.
My colleagues at Syntertainment, Will Wright, Avi Bar-Zeev, Jason Shankel, and LaurenElliott all gave great talks. Ironically, we’re not building augmented reality apps or H/W. We all just happen to continue to be very interested in the field. Â
United Kingdom. Jolly good!
South Korea
Canada
Philippines⁰
Australia
Mexico
Sweden
These photorealistic scifi drones were built with 
